Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host - by the Power of God - thrust into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits, who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Thursday, 31 December 2015

A pilgrimage does not end when we arrive at our destination, but when we return home and resume our everyday lives, putting into practice the spiritual fruits of our experience. We know what Jesus did on that occasion. Instead of returning home with his family, he stayed in Jerusalem, in the Temple, causing great distress to Mary and Joseph who were unable to find him. For this little “escapade”, Jesus probably had to beg forgiveness of his parents. The Gospel doesn’t say this, but I believe that we can presume it.

Can we?
It is often a kind of passive-aggressive tack to apologize when one knows one has done nothing wrong and the person to whom one apologizes is aware that one knows it.
Is the Pope saying Jesus was being manipulative?
Or does he think He had something "wrong"? (i.e., "sinned.")
Or didn't do anything wrong but thought He had and so was mistaken in that?

Has Pope Francis been reading apocryphal infancy narratives with those Aw, Shucks, Boys'll Be Boys incidents of sinful odd behavior, like striking a playmate dead because the poor kid had bumped into Him, and blinding the neighbors who complained about it?
(As if, rather than Harry Potter being a Christ figure, Christ is a Harry Potter figure, Who hasn't yet learned the appropriate use of His powers, and that it's not nice to tease the poor, hapless muggles...)

Is it compatible with Christian belief to think that God sometimes owes his creatures apologies? that He screws up? that He from time to time needs to offer us, not the, Sorry if that bothered anyone, it wasn't my intention... that rolls off the tongues of celebrities and politicians so often and so easily, but a sincere mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa?

I'm sorry, I really do love him, but I wish Pope Francis would think through what he says a little bit more, before he says it.

The scenario he presented here feels as if it ought to end with Joseph telling the Virgin Mary to take care of it because, "He's not MY kid...."

Wednesday, 30 December 2015

...We know little of the Child Jesus, but we can learn a lot from Him if
we look at the lives of children. It is a good habit that parents,
grandparents, have, to look at children, what they do.
We find out, first of all, that children want our attention. They
must be the focus, why? Because they are proud? No! Because they need to
feel protected. And it is necessary for us to put Jesus at the center
of our lives...Children, finally, love to play. To play with a child, however, means
abandoning our logic to enter theirs. If we want them to have fun, you
need to understand what pleases them, and not be selfish and make them
do things that we like. It is a teaching for us.

I have to admit, rather than turn my thoughts to higher things, all these words of the Holy Father did was remind me of an Onion article from a few years ago.

MINNEAPOLIS—A study published Monday in The Journal Of Child Psychology And Psychiatry
has concluded that an estimated 98 percent of children under the age of
10 are remorseless sociopaths with little regard for anything other
than their own egocentric interests and pleasures.According to
Dr. Leonard Mateo, a developmental psychologist at the University of
Minnesota and lead author of the study, most adults are completely
unaware that they could be living among callous monsters who would
remorselessly exploit them to obtain something as insignificant as an
ice cream cone or a new toy....According
to the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a clinical diagnostic tool,
sociopaths often display superficial charm, pathological lying,
manipulative behaviors, and a grandiose sense of self-importance. After
observing 700 children engaged in everyday activities, Mateo and his
colleagues found that 684 exhibited these behaviors at a severe or
profound level.The children studied also displayed many secondary
hallmarks of antisocial personality disorder, most notably poor impulse
control, an inability to plan ahead, and a proclivity for
violence—often in the form of extended tantrums—when their needs were
not immediately met....Because children are so skilled at mimicking
normal human emotions and will say anything without consideration for
accuracy or truth, Mateo said that people often don’t realize that
they’ve been exploited until it is too late. Though he maintained that
anyone can fall victim to a child’s egocentric behavior, Mateo warned
that grandmothers were especially susceptible to the self- serving
machinations of tiny little sociopaths.

How is it that I never heard of the artist Marianne Stokes before?
In any case, much thanks to Rorate Caeli for using a striking Madonna and Child, (not the one below,) to illustrate a post.
The expression on the Christ Child's face is arresting, (and reminds me of my godchild who seemed to have been born with a permanent aspect that said, "What do yout think you're looking at?")
This one caught my eye because the Baby Jesus, with his skinny arm, and flushed cheek, genuinely looks like a new-born, and that is almost unique in my experience of religious art.

Monday, 28 December 2015

From a Christmas homily given by a future Doctor of the Church, Josheph Ratzinger.

God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he
makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with
power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in
need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He
takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes
himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through
which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts
and his will – we learn to live with him and to practise with him that
humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God
made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and
love him.

I think the Church in the US has erred in making the anniversary of a terrible and dreadful court case the "big day" to make her pro-life stance noted.
The right day was already in the calendar.
You, abortionists, and your useful idiots,

...are threatened by the source of grace, so small, yet so
great, who is lying in the manger. He is using you, all unaware of it,
to work out his own purposes freeing souls from captivity to the devil.
He has taken up the sons of the enemy into the ranks of God’s adopted
children.

The children die for Christ, though they do not know
it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The child makes of those
as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself. See the kind of
kingdom that is his, coming as he did in order to be this kind of king.
See how the deliverer is already working deliverance, the saviour
already working salvation.

Oh, please.
I know online media is necessarily, (all God's children gotta pay the rent....) obsessed with clickbait. But why must religious writers be as egregious with their listicles, and "You've been doin' this wrong your whole life!" overstatement, and their solutions to problems you didn't know you had with with everyone finding your approach to something or other risible, ("everyone laughed when he stepped out but when he began to.... their jaws dropped!")?

The danger of infusing spiritual rationales into cultural practices is
also seen in some of the Christmas songs we sing at church during the
month of December. The most flagrant violation might be “O Christmas
Tree.” You have to search hard through the stanzas of this hymn to find
anything related to Jesus. We should be uncomfortable singing this carol
in a gathered group of Christians because it’s basically a song paying
homage to a tree.

Nope.
I can sing Jingle Bells in public, too.
Not in Church, of course, (although Catholics who program it and the editors of Gather for printing it, should cringe that this piece of borderline pantheistic drek ever sees the light of day. I know, I know, I realize that the "poet" or translator probably intended all those "fors" to mean "because of" not "directed toward", but telling us to sing to the Creator, but then in every verse enjoining "praise for" some non-sentient item of creation, is clumsy and open to too many, too widespread, manner of heretical idiocy in our theological and spiritually ignorant world.)
That's the difference.
There is plenty of room for secular Christmas songs, and even "in Church," just not "in worship,"
The carol sing lead-up to Midnight Mass? that's part of worship.
The carol sing on a Sunday afternoon, punch, fellowship and bars to follow?
Not so much.
The authors are Baptist, I think, so it's understandable that being of a non-liturgical bent they just don't "get" the Both/And quality of of most Christians' culture and praxis.
I can sing secular songs with other Christians, just as I can drink Starbuck's in December.
And that leads me to a larger, (in my opinion,) problem.
December.
If by, "some of the Christmas songs we sing at church during the month of December," they mean "during the last week of December," fine.
But otherwise, even so far removed from ancient practice as Baptists are, ADVENT, guys.
Advent.
Stop having desert while you still need to be cooking.

Tuesday, 22 December 2015

Never sure about this sort of thing, don't want to spread invective, but this does seem to have been said, and is truly.... would it be to un-PC to say, "lame"?

“For half a century, people of all ages have gathered around the TV to
watch Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, and the rest of the gang, teach us the
true meaning of Christmas.... They teach us that tiny trees just need a little love, and that on
this holiday, we celebrate peace on earth and goodwill toward all. Because, as Linus knows, that’s what Christmas is all about.”

Gee, is that what you got out of it?I've seen it, I dunno, maybe 25 times?I thought there was something else there....

Monday, 21 December 2015

I do not agree with her basic thesis, about whether women, (girls,) can profitably, (to the Body of Christ, not profit to tehmselves,) serve at the altar.
I believe it is more complex thn that, the presenc of females may indeed impede certain vocations, but that is not to say that some mens' vocations, or rather, the belief in such, might not well be impeded.
But this? say it, and say it again, shout it.

Beyond
the vocations issue, we come to a more thorny problem.....When women claim a more central role [in
charge of liturgy], we frequently see a
slide into lower and more culturally idiosyncratic practices. It
generally starts with campy banners and popular-style hymnody, but may
end with synthesizers and scantily-clad liturgical dancers. These
liturgies are not beautiful or uplifting. They’re more like a
never-ending hug from a grasping, obsequious aunt.
I have sometimes heard this sort of liturgy referred to as “feminine”
or “effeminate.” I don’t especially like that, because I don’t believe
that bad liturgy is really representative of what women have to offer.
I’m a woman, and I hate schlocky liturgy.

This, on t'other hand,

Still, there’s no doubt that women are more apt
to produce bad liturgy. Perhaps we could say that it is “feminine” in
the same way that pornography is “masculine”: it shows us some
characteristic defects of one sex in particular.

Yes, there is, there is doubt.
We need to remember, women began to have even some small control over liturgical celebrations, (excepting those in communities of female monastics,) at the utter nadir of liturgical fastidiousness, of taste in popular expressions of cult culture, and of aesthetics generally

I can't be the only one who has been startled by something a friend or acquaintance says, and thought that he must be mistaken, he misheard, he mistook Eye of the Tiber or SNL for actual news; yeah, I know I was out of radio contact/insane busy/sick/obsessed with some nonsense for a couple weeks, but that shouldn't matter, I would have heard later, that would have had some traction, people would still be....

The Greater Horn-billed American News Cycle, however, is a skittish beast, and sometimes an item much like one that preceded it and another that succeeded it, both of which were hobby hoses ridden by the media for many days fails, inexplicably, to fascinate the chattering classes.

This is one of those how-did-I-miss-that horrors that I used to think, (and then I used to hope,) someone had fabricated.

There are people I know who have connections to the culpable institution, and to some of the principles, (and no, not the victims,) for whose sakes I would hope it was untrue, but when the bare facts are laid out, there's not much doubt.

But imagine any sort of concern or establishment, one of whose employees or members admitted to abusing 13- or 14-year old prostitutes overseas, another to drugging young victims who were in his care, another pretending to be interested in figurative art to have children disrobe, another who abused children and was merely removed as a dorm supervisor but allowed to continue as a teacher.... it goes on.Then imagine that organization issuing this statement regarding all those crimes and all those sins when they are forced to release files:

The files provided include those of [men] currently living [right here where many of their crimes took place] under safety plans. Their actions are limited and they are closely supervised. Files also include nine [men] who are deceased and two men who have left.... The allegations against these men involve incidents that occurred more than two decades ago; some of the incidents are 30 or 40 years old. There are documents in each file which may be quoted and framed in a lurid context. [YA THINK?!???] But the huge majority of the documents in each of these files acknowledges the very real failures of some [men] while showing each of the accused [men] as a fallible, relatable person.[which are, what? NOT so "lurid"?]The files also show that [we] did not try to cover up allegations and did a reasonable job of managing the [man] and the problem.

That would do it for me, I guess. Everything's on the up-and-up, credibility restored, huh?

Not very well dressed, sloppily, even, but that is not uncommon in a vacation area approaching its peak of attractiveness to those who live elsewhere where the weather is other.
Wearing a hoodie. Okay, unusual, but there is no longer a canon law proscribing hats on men.
Reading before Mass.
Good.
Reading from an electronic device, not common, but not unheard of, either.
Reading aloud. Quite loudly, in fact.
Also, alas, not unheard of in this parish, where one man finally needed to be asked to stop proclaiming the Liturgy of the Hours deliberately seated in the midst of the regularly scheduled, daily, and noted-in-every-bulletin public recitation of the Rosary.

Reading about murder and massacres and gunshot wounds and blood and devastation. Aloud.

Now, it's strange.

One pew-sitter glances at him, and decides just to give the head usher, back in the sacristy, a heads up.

Several of us exit the sacristy and see the stranger exit his pew, stride up to the front of the nave, genuflect deeply, but instead of making the customary sign of the cross, he bows his head profoundly, and stretch out his arms, like the Crucified One, like a martyr.

This satisfies most of the ushers, who return to their pre-celebration tasks. One, however, exits the church by the same door, and sees the man make a circuit of the cloistered garden and duck in a back door. Alarmed, he gets the attention of another usher, an extremely large man, whether chosen by accident, or design, who knows?
They follow, and find the fellow in the wash room, albeit, not using the facilities.
Warily, they welcome him, ask him if he doesn't want to come in a find a seat, and tell him that Catholic men do not customarily cover their heads in Church.

Nervously, tensely, everyone finds himself a seat, and Mass begins.

Later, another usher tells us that she has seen him around, he is a schizophrenic in the neighborhood, she thinks he is harmless.

If a stranger dwell in your land, and abide among you, do not upbraid him: But
let him be among you as one of the same country: and you shall love him
as yourselves: for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the
Lord your God.

Saturday, 19 December 2015

As Stuart says, when Sheldon complains that "more wrong" is an absurd phrase, as wrong is an absolute and therefore has no gradations.

No, it’s a little wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable, it’s very wrong to say it’s a suspension bridge

I heard someone say something like this: The believer may be like a child who thinks Saint Nicholas delivered presents, when they were really secretly placed under the tree by his parents - a little wrong; the atheist, like the child who thinks the gifts spontaneously generated, - is very wrong.
Our inability to comprehend, fully the nature of our Creator, is no refutation of His existence.

As almost always, Eccles is wittier than I could ever hope, in his kindly pity for the second sort of child and his irrationality.

1. And lo! Christmas was approaching once more, the season of peace on
Earth to people of good will (and maybe some others, too)2. But Richard was still in those days an unsaved person, and he spake
forth, saying "Bah! Humbug!" Or sometimes (for a change) "Bah!
Jellybaby!" .....3. And behold, he went on the attack with a brilliantly-crafted tweet,
saying "There are people who believe Jesus turned water into wine. How
do they hold down a job in the 21st century?"
4. For he reasoned that the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker,
and the professor of biology could not do their jobs adequately if they
believed in an omnipotent creator.
5. For would they not inevitably produce bad sausages, or bad bread, or bad candles, or bad lectures, if they were men of faith?

I will never understand the child who doesn't want to play with his comrades, no he does not!

No I do not and don't ask me again, leave me alone, that's a stupid game anyway, I'm going to stand right here and keep telling you how stupid it is, oh, you're going over there, okay, I will too so I can keep telling you how much I don't want to play wi -- HEY, WAIT FOR ME, I CAN'T KEEP UP! okay, this is stupid, I don't want to play with -- hey, can you hear me? why aren't you paying attention to me?

I hope I do no wrong when I tell my Sunday School kids that Advent is kinda like the Church's time to be Old Testament people, to know what it was like for the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, B.(efore)C.(hrist)- waiting, longing, hoping, thirsting, begging for Him who was foretold to get here already!

I do enough complaining about it that I also need to praise, sometimes the lectionary, the choices made by its fabricators are incredibly powerful and perfect.

How many times have I read this, how many times have I PROCLAIMED the readings for this Sunday, and how have I never noticed this before?

He shall take His place as shepherd

by the strength of the Lord,

by the majestic name of the Lord, His God;

And they shall dwell securely, for now His greatness

shall reach to the ends of the earth:

He shall be peace.

Not, He will bring peace, or there will be peace in His time -- He will BE peace.

Friday, 18 December 2015

The New Yorker has a political advice column penned by the long dead but recently re-discovered, skeletally and genetically identified, and buried with fitting pomp and reverence albeit by protestants whom he would have had executed, non-nephew killing, much slandered monarch, Good King Richard.

Well done. (The handsome Duke of York was an early crush of mine, and the facial reconstruction proves he was quite as noble-visaged as I imagined him. So there..)

Dear King Richard -

Have you ever seen someone dominate
an election like this? I would have curb-stomped Reagan. I am more
popular than Mussolini ever was. I am significantly taller than Jesus.
I’ve made a huge amount of money, and I’m not going to apologize to
anyone for that. China is scared of me. My question is: How are you?

Sincerely,Talking Loudly Inside Trump Towers

Thank you for writing. I am fine, though afflicted by a certain
melancholy for, as I understand it, most of you think I am the ruthless
caricature created by that cretinous ass William Shakespeare. Do you
people really think I was in my mother’s womb for two years and born
with fangs? That not only did I kill my own brother’s sweet
sons but I also found time to kill Henry VI, his son Edward, and my own
beloved brother George? That I murdered my wife so that I could marry my
niece? Calumny. Oh, and Donald? You are like poison that screams its
victim to death. You belong in a dungeon.

Not sure if the German Bishops' Conference had considered the catchy trademark, I think "GendrLite" would have attracted the yoof, 'cause, you know. Misspelling and missing vowels.

GendrLite

Doncha think?
But a spoilsport in their midst has played the reality card.
A bishop, in bishop's clothing, as it were.

Celebrating the feast of St. Wolfgang, who was Bishop of Regensburg from
972 to 994, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer taught in an Oct. 31 homily that
gender theory – the idea of separating biological sex from gender – does
not contribute to equality, and is ultimately a denial of nature and
the goodness of creation. It puts at stake the essence of man and woman,
denying their nature as potential fatherhood and motherhood.
A bishop's pastoral ministry, he said, “includes the duty and the
responsibility to act as a guardian, to raise his voice, as necessary,
to draw attention to discrepancies or errors, however convenient or
inconvenient this may be.”
“Recently, just such a necessity has again arisen.”
Bishop Voderholzer noted that the German bishops' conference published a flyer
in late October which “was written to declare these theories as being
basically compatible with Catholic belief, in contrast to an extreme
form of gender mainstream, and it claims to be formulating the Catholic
position on this issue.”
“In my opinion, the former appears impossible – finally, there is no
such thing as 'gender light'. The concept lowers the drawbridge and
opens the gate to positions irreconcilable with the Christian faith. And
the flyer not only fails to present the Catholic position, it leaves it
out completely.”
The bishop also noted that the publication “was released in the name of
the Conference of Bishops, of which I am a member, without my having
previously seen its content, much less having approved it.”

Thursday, 17 December 2015

Supposing....
A fat sex offender with bad skin and a worse coiffure, who had been kicked out of his former kaffee klatsch of "satanists," announces that he is coming out of his room in his mom's basement long enough to perform a sacrilegious act in a small city in the middle of nowhere, in public.

Why would a Christian help him to publicize his activities?

Toddlers who learn foul words, or how to maximize the sound produced by passing gas are less interested in the obscenities or the noise than in the reaction they get from adults. (Don't ask me how I know...)

Pray, perform acts of reparation, but why fall for his ploy by giving this poor sod the attention he wants?

I love Star Wars.
I love every single person involved with the original, I remember Kenneth Colley and Denis Lawson, I can see every line of Luke's Aunt Beru's face as if she was mine, I remember the eyes of the boy I first saw the movie with and how we thrilled to every frame of the film and note of the score, I remember the taste of the milkshake I had on the way to see it a second time with another young man, I saw and defended the weaker episodes, I bought sheet music to the music, I chewed gum I hated to get cards, I...
Okay, you get the idea.

Oh, and I AM GOING TO SEE THE NEW ONE IN A MOVIE THEATRE.

(I have only paid to see HD broadcasts of operas in movie theatres in recent years.)

So you will understand than I am not a hater, I give anything Star Wars or Star Wars adjacent a lot of leeway, and I do not say this lightly:

I am sick of the commercial tie-ins and references to Star Wars!

Mascara? Sub-sandwiches? a waffle maker? (I know about that one because I'm in the market for a pizzelle iron this Christmass.) Crocs? Coffee creamer?

Trigger warning! This story and video may be unsuitable viewing for the “safe space” crowd.Looking to understand just how controversial the
debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and
satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our
nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak
directly to students. “I decided to take this campus free speech debate to
its logical conclusion,” said Horowitz, who asked students if they’d
sign a petition calling for an outright repeal of the First Amendment. ...
In fact, Horowitz discovered a solid majority of the
students asked willingly signed the petition, with several expressing
their enthusiastic approval for his anti-First Amendment efforts.

I wonder if those who felt Sacha Baron Cohen's movie revealed not so much latent racism, anti-semitism, and general cluelessness of the American butts of his joke, as their excessive "hospitality and politesse," will similarly jump to the defense of these... butts, saying they were just being amenable and kindly.

(Well, not that particular apologist, he no longer being in the business of jumping to anything, r.i.p.)

The fact is, of course, that any cause, good or bad, is almost bound to have its share of supporters who are idiots, churls, moral imbeciles - or just people who haven't thought their positions through to their "logical conclusions".

Trump isn't a thug because some of his supporters are thugs any more than Michael Brown was a petty criminal because some of his posthumous supporters are petty criminals. Abortion isn't wrong because some abortionists are callous money-grubbers.

And I don't think it improves anyone's chances of bringing those with opposing viewpoints over to one's side by trying to demonstrate that anyone who disagree must be a fool.

Tuesday, 15 December 2015

When Himself undertook the Maurice Chevalier role in a revival of Gigi, there was talk about how the hit song from the musical would be impossible to introduce nowadays, and was barely acceptable in a revival; and how difficult was the task of performing it without being creepy or downright louche.
Much was made of how the musical, (not the Colette story,) was the product of a more innocent time.
Any way, his charm was sufficient unto the task, he was avuncularly flirtatious, not Dirty Old Man, (although in my opinion, the director made a few errors increasing the challenge: the girl-child who inspires the song should come into Honore's presence, join him already seated on a park bench, not the other way 'round.)

Now that all seems quaint, that seems a more innocent time..

A grown man need not find a little girl to thank heaven for - he can just be one, (although I'm not at all certain the whole thing isn't a hoax):

After 23 years of marriage and seven children, a transgender woman [disturbed man] is
taking a chance on living her [his] truth [sick fantasy]— however controversial it might
seem.Stefonknee Wolscht began her transition [his play-acting] six years ago at age 46 and now she is living as a 6-year-old girl."Stop being trans wasn't something I could do; that's like telling me
to stop being 6-foot-2 or leave,” Wolscht said of her [his long-suffering] wife's ultimatum
in a clip.Wolscht is the subject of a social video series ... which profiles transgender people in Canada.

As I said, could be the Onion's doing, but it's not as if society isn't full of enablers in media, academe and generally the chattering classes who would take this seriously, go along with it and pretend that the delusional fellow is what he says he is.

Monday, 14 December 2015

Did you ever assist at a Mass that, for what ever reason, continued to occupy your thoughts and your feelings for long afterward?

I have been very fortunate, much superb preaching, much stirring music, much careful and precise prayer, much authentic emotion, much manifest "active love" in my lifetime, far more than liturgies that haunt one for the opposite reasons.

But the one that has all but obsessed me now for a week stands out for... well, for the reason that nothing about it "stands out," utter simplicity*, utter focus, utter simplicity, utter God-ward motion.

It was one single prayer offered to the Father by the Son in the Holy Spirit.

It was seamless.

I like gorgeousness, I like splendor. These are not the same as ostentation, but I have to remind myself at times that Beauty avails Herself of a broad range of aesthetics and styles, so that by the same token minimalism and simplicity are not the same as shabbiness or homeliness.

My tastes are naturally formed somewhat by good experience, nostalgia, fond associations - but I think I can be objective in my judgements, as well, and I think the plain fact is that some styles and aesthetics lend themselves more to liturgical use, are more powerfully able to accomplish the evanglization and catechesis that is required of them.

Any way, my Mass for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception just hit that sweet spot. I was travelling, for pete's sake, and it was almost pure chance!

Sometimes I think I'm just to lucky to live. (For LONG, Aunt Scelata! I can hear my squeaky voiced little niece reprimanding me for shortchanging an expression she likes, "2 lucky 2 live 4 long" is how it goes!)

I'll have to write a bit more of it when I can.
.........................................................................*"Noble simplicity" properly understood - This is as good a definition and concise a description as any: noble simplicity, at least as Winckelmann first defined it, properly
refers to a unity of physical and spiritual elements in a work of art,
and was used by him to refer to classical Greek sculpture, which is a
world apart from the misshapen gnomes that populate OCP clip art. You
could make the case that good Gothic, Baroque or Romanesque has the
quality of noble simplicity.

Or wait, they didn't.
Or actually came out in support of suicide prevention.
Except when they aren't.
But by "they", I don't mean "they" because there's the paper, (LOL! do they even have any readers of "paper" anymore?) and then there's the "Editorial Board."
Which speaks for the paper, right?
Although, of course, in the pages of the Op-Ed, they may give space to other viewpoints.
Except when they point blank refuse to.
Because a multiplicity of opinions can be countenanced, should actually be encouraged.
Except when it can't because anyone who disagrees is a poopyhead.

Got it?

So.
If stricter gun control will help prevent suicides, than civilized people have no choice but to support it. ("But we should try to save as many people as possible.")
You know, because that's an absolute value, keeping distraught people from offing themselves.
Unless we approve of the means said distraught people have chosen.
Then we're in favor of it, (a "governor should sign into law a bill that would allow some terminally ill patients to hasten their death.")

One might be forgiven for suspecting that it's only guns to which the New York Times Editorial Board objects, that they hold guns to be objectively evil, but find suicide morally neutral.
At least, that's the only logical defense I can find for rationalizing the two different stances.

And I say this as a supporter of stricter gun control, who hates what the NRA, at least currently, stands for, and who despises the cowardice of its congressminions..

Sunday, 13 December 2015

Okay, so my ten-year-olds can't remember if they've ever received the sacrament of confession... or of reconciliation... or of penance... or of mercy.
And they cannot manage to learn the words o the Act of Contrition.

And they can't tell the difference between "confirmation" and "communion."

And it is impossible to get them not to write in the pages of their missals, and to write on the pages of their workbooks.
Or pick up paper off the floor.
Or not to taste the paste.
Or to keep their hands off my things.
Or to put down their phones.
Or...
Well, no matter.

Today one instigated, and the others kept going, with pertinent, insightful questions, a discussion of, I kid you not, chronos and kairos.

I love them. (Even the kid who tried to break a desk by pounding on it with his foot in a cast.)
I just love them

Friday, 11 December 2015

If he's not discussing bad breath so heinous as to knock another down, (or the unpleasantness attendant upon people who spit when they talk,) and this is not a translation problem, I am hard pressed to know what in the world Archbishop Rino Fisichella means here:

“I would say that we need to understand well ‘physical violence,’
because sometimes words, too, are rocks and stones, and therefore I
believe some of these sins, too, are far more widespread than we might
think.”

"Physical," in common with many words, has an actual meaning, you know?
It means something.
Harsh words are "physical violence"?..."PHYSICAL VIOLENCE"?
Really?

Thursday, 10 December 2015

Par for the course from the Vatican nowadays, clear as mud and flexible enough to support 'most any position already held by anyone.

The secular press, (and, true, the portions of the Catholic media less given to precision in reportage than I might like,) ,) is therefore to be forgiven for stating flatly that "the Vatican says".. Catholics "should not try to convert" the Jewish people.

The document is far more equivocal and far less authoritative that NPR et al would have it be, but hard as any German bishop or rabbi might wish, it does not really say quite that.

Rather than actually proscriptively banning such evangelization, the doc, (which clear states of itself that it is "not a magisterial document or doctrinal teaching" of the Church, descriptively says how things are at the present time, that the Church "neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews," and it "is not a matter of missionary efforts to convert Jews" which is "a very delicate and sensitive matter," and "must be presented correctly."
The Jewish people are unique, unlike any other non-Christians, occupying a special and privileged place. BUT, the Church's members are "nonetheless called to bear witness to their faith in Jesus Christ also to Jews," since She believes in the "universality of salvation in Jesus Christ," She "cannot refrain from proclaiming Jesus as Lord and Messiah," and yeah, sure, the "figure of Jesus thus is and remains for Jews the ‘stumbling block’", and the Old Testament is meaningless for Christians unless interpreted through the "key" of Jesus Christ, who is the "cornerstone" of the faith.
"Jesus Christ is the universal mediator of salvation,...there is no other."

Oh, and yeah, forced conversions and violence and antisemitism are bad and soup kitchens are good.
What was that commission Christ gave his disciples? and how did He pray to the Father?

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, except the Jews, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching everyone, oh, but like I said before, leave the Jewish people out of it, to observe all that I have commanded you." "I pray that they may all be one, but, You know, with the usual exceptions, as You, Father, are in me and I in you... but now that I think of it, You and I are one but We're also kind of two, so yeah, like that, I pray that they all may be two...."